During the 1950s and 1960s, the use of local building styles and traditional materials seemed to be on the wane. But shortly after that the historic architecture of the American Southwest rapidly began to win a new popularity. The turnaround was partly a product of the back-to-earth movement, the energy crises of the 1970s, and a reawakening of interest in regional history. But it received a boost, too, from advances in the use of solar energy--many of the new developments being especially adaptable to adobe structures. Individuals planning their dream house led the way, but many home builders and architects, taking note of the demand, followed the trend setters. At the same time, "how-to" books and articles on Southwestern traditional architecture began to find a large readership. Among those in the forefront of this small phenomenon was artist and writer Myrtle Stedman. A long-time resident of the Santa Fe, New Mexico area, she had been a champion of the old ways in building for much of her adult life. Indeed, her books "Adobe Architecture" and "Adobe Remodeling and Fireplaces" in significant measure helped spark the return to traditional construction. Mrs. Stedman has now added to her earlier accomplishments with the present sketchbook, focusing on the numerous fascinating and picturesque aspects of rural architecture, focusing on northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Her splendid pen and ink drawings, reminding one of Eric Sloane's work on rural America, have a three-fold value. In the first instance, they serve as an accurate documentary record of features and styles that comprise the unique architecture of this area. Secondly, the drawings will prove a boon to those wishing to restore buildings and improve rural properties along traditional lines. And finally, the artistic merit and natural charm of the sketchbook should appeal to all those who possess an aesthetic appreciation for the Southwestern landscape, be it natural or that part which is manmade.

Rural Architecture

Arts & Photography

Myrtle Stedman

Architecture

Sunstone Press

In one volume clear and thorough instructions on remodeling adobe houses plus how to build an adobe fireplace. Illustrations and practical instructions make working from this book a pleasure. Designed for use by the most inexperienced person as well as the professional builder. Based on 48 years of the author's experience.

Adobe Remodeling & Fireplaces, A Comprehensive Guide to Expansion, Restoration and Maintenance of Adobe Homes

Dreaming of building an adobe home? This classic guide, with floor plans ranging from a small casita to larger ones gives 18 comprehensive period designs for the traditional adobe (the earthern ''bricks'' used all over the world) house adapted to building materials, plumbing, heating and small lot sizes of today. Thousands of readers have found this a valuable handbook. The authors also venture into actual adobe brick-making, construction techniques, furnishing, even how to make a horno, a traditional Indian oven. Illustrated, detailed diagrams, house plans.
 The first seeds for the concept for this book on adobe architecture were sown as early as 1916, when Wilfred Stedman was a student at the Art Students League in New York City. It was there that he saw Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips' paintings of adobe homes in villages in and around Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico. When in the early 1920s and 1930s Wilfred and Myrtle came to see and experience this area for themselves, they met Mary Austin, Alice Corbin Henderson, Will Shuster, Frank Applegate, Josef Bakos and Mabel Dodge Luhan--all famous artists and writers of that time. These people made themselves and their friends from all over the world feel at home in this vernacular architecture.
 While nowhere in the United States is the Earth Building spirit as revered as in Santa Fe and Taos, new interest is spreading all over the world. New research and new technology is being combined with the traditional in keeping with an overall awakening to the natural resources and beauty of our planet and with a new personal sense of responsibility on the part of individuals in regard to better planning in the use of these. There is a new sense of joy in finding out how much one can do oneself with natural materials.

Adobe Architecture, A Simple Guide with Plans for Building with Earth

Wilfred Stedman

He couldn't say ''I love you'' until the end. And now he was gone. Before, there was the intense love affair mixed with deep disappointments and hurts that started in the 1920s and developed over the years when the two were artists and architects in Santa Fe and Taos. Afterwards, she went on--on to reach new heights as she became a famous builder of adobe houses and a painter of all that surrounded her. But his influence remained and it permeates her writing as firmly as the mind that dominated her before his death. Yet this seems to stimulate her probing deeper into her own self and she transports the reader to the art colonies, the blue skies and clean, cool air of northern New Mexico over several decades. Is this a love story? Perhaps not. More likely this is a study in the transforming of attitudes, shaping the reader's thought to appreciate everything about everyday life, encouraging joy in every emotion, searching for one's own consciousness.

A House Not Made With Hands

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Through her forthright and open yearning to understand the mysteries of the Mind, Stedman articulates our own deep seeking. Her probing questions prod us into curiosity and consternation. Her answers startle and delight. Put together with its structural bones she gives us a clear picture of the creative process in non-classical poetic verse that flows and snags and flows again through life and death to life again. Chapters include Automatic Writing, Channeling, and Living by Grace. This is the first book of Myrtle Stedman's Universal Mind trilogy. The other two are Of Things to Come and The Way Things Are or Could Be.

Of One Mind, From a Longing to an Understanding of the Universal Mind

Humor & Entertainment

Readers are given vivid examples of how the Universal Mind turns imagery into reality, invited to ponder and explore this mechanism in their current lives, and to examine the potential for humanity's future evolution. The other two books in the Universal Mind Trilogy, all written in non-classical poetic verse, are Of One Mind and The Way Things Are or Could Be.

Of Things to Come, An Explosive Declaration (Universal Mind Trilogy)

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

In The Ups and Downs of Living Alone in Later Life, Myrtle Stedman follows and develops the ideas expressed in her previously-published trilogy: Of One Mind, The Way Things Are or Could Be and Of Things to Come. In the process of her writing, she has come to view the Mind as Universal expression and receptivity ever driven by the Spirit of a biological urge-Its creativity evolving whatever It sets Itself to do for the love of doing. With a sense of humor, honesty and simplicity, she sees the Mind's work blinking in and out of range or sight, much like an artist works with a pencil in one hand and an eraser in the other, the creative attainment ever evolving. Two age-old questions, 'God created' or 'evolution,' are thus settled to her satisfaction in this, her fourth book on the Creative Mind-her tenth book published by Sunstone Press.

The Ups & Downs of Living Alone in Later Life : A Spiritual Revelation

Adobe Fireplaces

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Myrtle Stedman. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Myrtle Stedman